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his is just a little note about the movie Clockstoppers—the exact same film has been made before, entitled The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything, followed by, The Girl, the Gold Watch & Dynamite. I believe Pam Dawber was in the second one, and the guy from Airplane was in the first. Circa late '70s, early '80s. I'm really surprised that nothing
has been mentioned about the movies—they were pretty good, especially for the times.
Nick Kisella
LDARQUE1@AOL.COM
ll this talk about Clockstoppers... Not one reviewer has noted that this is nothing but a remake of The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything, which was a bad TV-adaption of the 1962 novel by John D. MacDonald. Can't anyone do anything original? If not, [why not] just adapt every Heinlein, Asimov and Clarke novel to either the big screen or cable. That would make me happy.
Rick Sala
ricksala@attbi.com
ellow Tron fans: You are probably as excited as I am at the prospect of a new Tron film coming soon. However, you might also share in the confusion about the plot. There are many facets of the original Tron story that have been rehashed over the years, and now they have another hack in a long line of Hollywood hacks since 1982 going where no man has gone ... this may be a weary story to tell. ...
Steve Lisberger, if you're out there somewhere, there are two major elements of sequels you can employ here to really make Tron 2.0 work, and there is a history of evidence to show that these ideas could make Tron 2.0 big.
If anyone out there knows how to get a hold of Steve Lisberger, let me know!
Fred Lovinfosse
a-zvideo@aol.com
agree with Kevin Ahearn's recent letter ("SCI FI Needs News Program") calling for some sort of SF-dedicated news program. While the old canceled shows like SCI FI Buzz and SF Vortex were closer to Entertainment Tonight than 60 Minutes, at least fans had an outlet for news and commentary. In fairness, the SCI FI Channel tries to revive such shows from time to time. Does anybody remember Sciography (a sort of True Hollywood Story for genre TV), which only lasted two episodes? And wasn't there a very short-lived program with two co-hosts—one being Chase Masterson from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine?
Kevin needs the news show more than he knows. He states that in a chat room he quoted "Klaatu barada nikto" and was applauded for his reference to Army of Darkness. Apparently no one in the chat room knew that Army of Darkness was ripping off the catch-phrase from the 1951 masterpiece film The Day the Earth Stood Still! Doesn't anybody know these things?
John C. Snider
jcs1963@bellsouth.net
n response to Kevin Ahearn's letter, I have to agree that people are unaware of a vast amount of genuinely good science fiction, but while I do not think a news program is called for ("SCI FI Needs News Program"), I think that the SCI FI Channel needs a to consider a few things. First and foremost, the shows aired. Babylon 5 was, to me, the best of the lot (I taped all 110 episodes) and that was an excellent choice of shows to put on. But what happened to the past—the "golden age?" It's not a question of "klaatu barada nikto" being remembered from Army of Darkness (though that may be the best usage of it) but that it came from a much earlier location, The Day the Earth Stood Still. It was later used in Star Wars as the names of three different aliens (I knew this because I had the action figures and a card game that listed them all!)
But before Bill and Ted hopped into a phone booth, Doctor Who was traveling around the universe in a police box, albeit in a low-budget, but high-quality show! Hell, it's the longest running sci-fi
show in the world, but who thinks of it when compared to the moralistic, preachy, everything's-gonna-be-alright attitude of the glossy eye-candy Star Trek. I was watching Trek when I was three, (so my parents tell me), but I've come to realize that it is lacking in a great many areas—but this letter won't tear into Trek. ... OK, anyone remember being scared half to death by the melting rock-creature of Corpus Earthling in the original Outer Limits? Where did The Time Tunnel lead? Does anyone remember Number 6 in The Prisoner—one of sci-fi's most controversial shows? When has Ralph Hinkly and Bill Maxwell last graced our television screens with The Greatest American Hero? (Oh, sure it was cheesy, but it was fun!) There are countless examples of shows that are not on and should be. What the hell, for nostalgia's sake, put on Planet of the Apes, the series ... or V the series.
OK, step two: consider less cuts in the movies, or uncut movies. The one channel I would willingly pay for is not HBO, or Showtime, but the SCI FI Channel, however, I would want uncut movies. No altered dialog to hide the bad words or scenes! I want to see the whole movie, or I am just going to go rent it! Most people who enjoy sci-fi, stay with sci-fi even when they are adults, so the viewing audience will not always be kids! I am sure we still love Godzilla marathons, but where are The First Men in the Moon or The Invisible Man? Now, the The Golem was finally released to the world, when is that going to be aired? Metropolis? What, too old? Come on, these are the origins of everything we love—give it a chance! These are things that sci-fi fans should be shown—so many things to show, but no one willing to do it! I've been studying sci-fi for ages and love it, but not enough people know about the real story behind it!
Please, get more people to write in with ideas—Farscape is excellent, Babylon 5 is wonderful, but we need to have people know where it all started ... and share that with the world of fans out there!
Hope this does not fall on deaf ears, but equally, I hope people understand and can agree with me.
Michael Loschiavo
mloschiavo@exchange.ml.com
ey, I know I'm late in the game, but ... I just saw Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings on Easter (coincidentally the first day they started showing the trailer for the next film in the trilogy) and I have to make one or two
comments.
Whatever you can say about the film, as good as the book, worse or better, you have to admit that it is the first fantasy film to earn respect for the genre. Nominated for Best Picture Oscar ain't too shabby. It is definitely no Conan, no Hercules Unchained or that show with the guy from Matt Houston (Lee Horsely?) The Sword and the Sorceress? Whatever. Willow came close but in the end it became more mainstream (with the sorceresses' fist fight at the end and the drunken Brownies) than loyal to the fantasy genre itself.
As for myself, I really enjoyed the movie. Much better than the book. Then again, I never finished the book. I tried to read The Hobbit, but I was too wasted by the animated version to enjoy it. Then I started The Fellowship of the Ring and I couldn't get past Bilbo Baggins being "eleventy-one" years old. Much too childish a reference for my taste at the time, so I didn't continue reading. For years I just couldn't understand the appeal of the books. Peter Jackson made the experience more than tolerable; it was even magical, not to get too corny. I eagerly await the rest of the trilogy.
As for the rift in the Tolkien family—someone was snubbed because he supported the film while the rest of the family didn't, or something to that effect. I don't think Peter Jackson's vision of the books is something to be upset over. He obviously crafted the movie with love for Tolkien and the
genre itself, so I don't see the harm. And I'm sure more copies of the books have been sold in the last year or two than in the last decade before the movies were announced, so no harm there either, eh?
My one concern, or nitpick, I guess, is over one scene in the movie. I don't know if it was an accurate depiction of what was in the book or not. Our gang of heroes is floating down the river and see two huge statues that represent the kings of Man, or something like that. Er ... are the statues
giving a Nazi salute? Heil Hitler? I don't want to step on any toes—this is just idle talk, but Tolkien wasn't a Nazi, was he? Was he referring to the race of Man as fascists? Or is Peter Jackson letting his white supremacist views leak out a little? Just curious, and like I said, I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings.
Michael Kroll
aradyn@hotmail.com
o those bemoaning the lack of good science fiction, the answer is simple: Turn off the TV and go read a book. We are in the midst of a golden age of written science fiction that rivals that of the '40s or late '60s. Writers such as Iain Banks, Greg Bear, Vernor Vinge, Connie Willis, Alastair Reynolds, Paul McAuley, Ian McDonald and Robert Charles Wilson have given us stories that are both gripping and original over the last decade. Even Larry Niven has written his best book in 20 years (Destiny's Road). In fantasy, Sean Stewart, Tim Powers and Charles de Lint have broken out of the Arthurian-Tolkienian ghetto and are ranging far afield. Meanwhile, TV gives us retreads of comic books and bad '70's shows. Battlestar Galactica sucked the first time around, do we need to find that out again? Aside from A.I., there hasn't been a decent SF movie since 12 Monkeys. The Minority Report looks promising, but the story is 30 years old—hardly cutting edge.
If you want good science fiction, read the above authors, or any of the books recommended in the Off the Shelf section [of Science Fiction Weekly]. If you want good TV, watch The West Wing.
Dave Campanas
d.campanas@shaw.ca
am surprised that anyone was satisfied with the resolution of Babylon 5's Shadow War ("Babylon 5 Ended Correctly"). I was glued to my seat week-after-week eagerly awaiting new developments. The culmination was a flat, boring letdown. I can't remember being so disappointed. So much so that I was hoping the next week they would have taken a cue from Dallas and have Sheridan walk out his shower and describe the weird dream he had about the war being over.
Pat Smith
psmith1@ldol.state.la.us
he SCI FI Channel's announcement ("SCI FI Slate Announced") "that it is developing an ambitious slate of original miniseries and movies," including Taken, Battlestar Galactica, Myst, Forever War, Chronicles of Amber, On the Seventh Day, and Colosseum, plus the headline sequel to Dune and repeats of X-Files and Roswell would seem to bode well for an enterprise still struggling to transcend its niche audience.
What's missing, of course, is a signature series, something the likes of which can be found nowhere else and appeal to the SF crowd and entertain the rest of humanity as well.
No mean feat. The Comedy Channel, which shows more unfunny flicks than SCI-FI does lame genre pics, came up with The Daily Show and South Park and reaped the benefits. The SCI FI Channel has yet to do anything like that. While we can debate the quality of Lexx, Invisible Man and other original series, fact is none found an audience beyond the SF niche.
Therein lies the SCI FI dilemma: comes an original SF idea with great audience potential and a bigger network will grab it. What's SCI FI to do? For a start, beat the backwoods harder than ever in search of new talent and fresh properties instead of relying on the same old names with the same old
mindsets. In short, "to boldly go where no network has gone before."
Success is out there.
Kevin Ahearn
KEVTOMA@aol.com
F has become too safe, too comforting, too predictable. It should try to shock, frighten, challenge and confound the world, not provide anodyne escapism for the feeble-minded. Hollywood is particularly guilty of this; for sci-fi read soapy, politically correct, mawkish mush. SF can be a genuinely subversive medium, but most modern varieties seem in favor of the establishment. Remember Mr. Wells, Prof. Quatermass, Aldous Huxley, Luthor Arkwright, Roj Blake and Hal.
Adrian Haythorne
adrianhaythorne@yahoo.co.uk
read Barbara Goldstein's letter "Andromeda Becomes Hercules in Space", and I couldn't agree more, they had a show that had some potential, but with Wolfe's departure, it's going nowhere. For the most part, good science fiction is an intelligent well thought-out story, that changes characters, not a sitcom with out the jokes.
Robert Hewitt Wolfe had created an interesting universe, populated with strange and mysterious beings, each having secrets, and danger. He wasn't afraid of unhappy endings and death. He should have been allowed to see his vision through, or the show should have been canceled. It's a pity that he didn't have the power that J. Michael Straczynski did to kill his show Crusade when faced with terrible notes from two warring sides of TBS.
The Andromeda team created a good ensemble cast, that needed fine tuning, similar to the first season of Babylon 5. In firing the creator, they've gotten rid of the most important piece of the show. Sorbo has charisma, but doing this won't help his career long term.
Les Vogel
lesv@angeltech.com
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